Head Coach Gregor Townsend said, “I’m very proud of the way the team played and the physicality they showed, the rugby we played and the character to adapt to things that were going against us – whether that was injuries early on, or Wales scoring a couple of early tries, we showed a really good picture of who we are, especially in the second half.

“I firmly believe if we had just improved our defence and had better spacing, we’re winning this game.”

Scotland captain Stuart McInally added “I felt there were definitely chances to win that game, especially that second half while we threw everything at them, we just weren’t accurate enough. We had a few chances to score and just didn’t look after the ball.

“The first half probably cost us as well, we had a few tries that we potentially could have stopped if we had sorted our defence out a little, but in terms of where we were last time we took the pitch, there was a big step forward and although we’re disappointed to lose at home, a lot of effort went into that performance and there was a lot to be proud of.

“We asked a lot of the boys before the game to be physical, work really hard, and that was there in abundance and I’m proud of the effort we put in.

“The try we scored was brilliant and great to see Darcy get on the end of it, he worked so hard – I thought he was fantastic today – there were a number of guys who stepped up and put the third best team in the world under incredible amounts of pressure.

“It’s never easy losing players early on, but I thought the guys who came on did well, it’s stuff you’ve just got to deal with it. We’ve done it all campaign and you just need to get your head down, everyone knows what is expected when you pull on a Scotland jersey at home and you’ve just got to work the opposition hard and I felt at times we did today.”